A/N: Here we are again, thanks for the feedback -

Spike knew that if she ever found out she'd be pissed as hell. Others might have expected her to be overjoyed, disbelieving, or poignant but Spike knew her best and knew that she would be pissed. Still got the best right hook ever to have graced my face Spike thought to himself proudly that's my girl.

Buffy looked down on him without an expression on her face but he had seen the hurt in her eyes when they had stood face to face with only a lethal weapon between them. She wouldn't understand why he hadn't told her. If he was truthful even he didn't fully understand it. He just knew that he had too. For a while he had to be by himself, to live by himself without being dependent on her, on seeing her everyday. Spike had to relearn how to become his own man again.

Looking at her now, though, he could not believe he had survived this long without seeing her. Without even being in the same country as her. It had been torture but the pain had grown to an ache as the months had past. Now, though, it all came rushing back to him. That feeling that she could make his heart beat just by looking at him.

The expression she was looking at him with now broke his already fragile heart. There she stood with her golden hair long and loose, her face and clothes covered in blood and her shirt ripped. Buffy's face was cut with three long slashes from clawed hands. Her tanned skin was torn open and split. A trickle of demon's blood ran down from her forehead, past her eye, all the way down to her chin where it dropped onto the carpet by his foot. Even like this she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

Buffy's blue/green eyes locked on his and she shook her head almost imperceptibly but he caught it.

Spike opened and closed his mouth trying to think of the right thing to say...or anything at all but for the first time in his life William the Bloody could not think of the words.

Then he noticed movement out of the corner of his eyes and turned towards it, his eyes widening as he turned back to the Slayer.

"Buffy!" He yelled in warning at the same time trying to scrabble up.

She turned but it was a fraction too late and the lizard demon careened into her with the speed of a freight train. In less then a second Buffy had been pushed out of his line of vision and he jumped up and turned his head rapidly looking for her. He found her pinned to the wall with three lizard demons working on her at once.

Spike ran towards her and as he closed the distance he saw his Slayer fighting with the same intense ferocity that he had always loved about her. She took down two of the lizards with a roundhouse kick to one that sent it flying into its mate. Spike jumped the other one she was fighting from behind and rode it's body down to the floor leaving Buffy to deal with the two who were climbing up from the floor again.

The vampire morphed faces and picked his demon up as he stood then rammed it's face into the wall three times hard as he could. The demon weakly tried to lash out at him but Spike caught it's wrists and tore it's clawed hand off. Then he finished it off by punching his hand into the demon's back and ripping out its spine. He let the demon fall to the floor in a heap and whirled around striking another approaching demon in the face with the spine he had acquired from one of it's species. Strips of skin were ripped from the demon's face by the column of bone. Spike decided that spines made very good weapons. He kicked the injured demon in the face so hard that he squashed its face into the back of its head.

The demons kept on coming and Spike wondered how many of them wanted Angel and Co dead. They had started off the morning as they did every other but then these guy's had busted in with the intention to assassinate the head of Wolfram and Hart.

Now, Spike found himself in the middle of the large corridor that led to Angel's office with his back pressed against the back of Buffy Summers' and a pressing urge to have his axe back as demons surrounded them in a circle. Angel, Gunn and Wesley were picking off people from the outside and working their way towards the Slayer and the vampire but they would not get there in time if the demons all decided to rush them. And, of course, they did.

Spike braced himself and let out a war cry as they all rushed towards them. Spike lashed out with fists and feet kicking and hitting as hard and as fast as he could. Trying to cause us much damage as possible with the least amount of time taken.

Blood ran into his eyes from cut's that had been inflicted on his head from the demon's vicious claws. Even through his hazed vision he saw demons flying backwards through the air as Angel pulled them away and killed them. He heard a shotgun going off quickly and with precision as Wesley blew the sucker's away. In a matter of seconds, however, the sheer volume of demon's overwhelmed them and Spike was kicked to the floor taking Buffy with him.

The lizard things all poured on top of them like some swarm of cockroaches except these cockroaches were deadly as well as gross. Spike landed on top of Buffy on his back, crushing himself into her, he tried to roll off of the Slayer but the demons were ripping at his clothes and skin. He felt a burning pain and looked down.

"Slayer! Slayer! Kill! Kill!" Some of the demons were chanting.

So, it seemed these guys weren't too keen on Slayers either. Spike didn't have to ponder how they knew she was a Slayer, any demon or decent supernatural person could tell. Slayer's just had something. In Spike's case he could always tell because of the scent of their blood but for each demon it was different.

So, when Spike looked down and saw a demon had punched its hand through his stomach, all the way through him, in an attempt to get to Buffy he wasn't that surprised. Slayers were highly sort after prizes in the demon world, always had been. Still, he had pride enough to be insulted that he was just something in the way of their quest for Slayer blood.

"Kill the Slayer? Tsk tsk," Spike shook his head as he clamped his hands down onto the demon's arm and twisted so hard that it's muscles and bones popped "Should be more concerned with the real danger here. Me" Spike wrenched the arm out of the demon's socket and then pulled it out of himself.

He clubbed the demon around the head with it and it fell to the ground dead or unconscious minus one arm.

Fists and feet were hitting him everywhere and Spike could feel Buffy beneath him trying to shove him off. Eventually she managed it and he got tossed to the side. The demons grabbed him up and threw him aside, they started to pass him around further and further away from Buffy who still lay on the floor fighting off all the demons as they came at her.

"Buffy!" Spike called, slamming his elbow into one demon's face, his foot into another's.

"Help..." Buffy muffled voice yelled "Dawn!"

Spike got thrown out of the circle and landed on the floor, skidding over it on his front before he came to a stop. He groaned and picked himself up onto his hands and knee slowly, gingerly pressing his hand to the hole in his stomach where the fist had gone through. He looked around for Dawn but couldn't see her.

He could however see a pile of demons all writhing around on top of each other like a rugby pile-up. Spike stood and his eyes widened. There had to be at least twenty of them. And they were all on top of Buffy.

Spike let out a roar and ran over to the pile grabbing two demons by the back of their shirts and tossing them off of her. He then grabbed the next two and the next two. Spike was vaguely aware of Angel doing the same thing from the other side of the pile as they both raced to help Buffy. Wesley and Gunn were taking care of the demons the two vampires were throwing across the corridor.

Spike could think of them no longer. His mind was fixated on one thing. Help Buffy. Help Buffy. Help Buffy. So he continued to toss the demons away like rag dolls.

However both Angel and Spike had to jump to the floor for cover when suddenly at least ten demons were propelled up into the air and went flying in every direction over them. Spike looked up from his position on the floor and saw Buffy standing there, her hair windswept, her face covered in blood and that expression on her face. Spike knew what that face meant. It promised pain.

Both Angel and Spike just watched in awe from where they lay on the floor as Buffy tore into the demons like a tornado. She threw them down the corridor like they had wings; they landed against the walls so hard that their bones were crushed in one fell swoop. She kicked her feet through their skulls; she punched her hands into their chests and ripped out their hearts. All the while she did this she was the most exquisite woman to have graced the face of this Earth.

In less than a minute the demon army was obliterated, the corridor leading up to Angel's office was in dire need of a cleaning team, and Buffy the vampire Slayer stood in the middle of it all with her arms crossed and her trademark pout.

"Dawn?" Buffy said.

Dawn Summers walked towards her with a couple of cuts on her face and Spike's axe in her hand. She stood by her side and then noticed him "Spike?"

"Hey, niblet," Spike stood up slowly, dusting himself off "Like the hair"

Angel was now standing too "Buffy. Wow, this is a surprise. If I knew you were coming I would have..."

"What?" Buffy whirled around to look at him "You would have what? Lied to me? Hid Spike in a closet until I went away?"

"It was never my decision not to tell you" Angel replied.

Buffy turned her steely gaze to Spike "You! You..." Her resolve faded and she ran up to him and wrapped her arms around his neck pulling him close.

Spike let out a disbelieving sound and felt his eyes widen at this. He had just snapped out of it enough to start to hug her back when she shoved him away so hard he fell on his ass again.

"Okay, now I'm really confused" He muttered rubbing his head.

"You're confused! You...you...Oh!" Buffy turned on her heel and slammed into the fire exit door that led to the stairs.

The door swung shut with a loud, deafening thud in the silence of the war-torn corridor. Spike looked around awkwardly as did everyone else.

"Way to go, Spike!" Dawn huffed and turned to follow her sister before pointing at Angel "And you! Men!"

With that she disappeared out of the same door. Leading to another similar echoing thud of the closing door.

"That went well, I thought" Spike offered after a few moments.

Angel nodded "Better than expected"

A/N: As always I ask you review.